Amazing natural beauty with great cities nearby. You could hike in wilderness on a Saturday and see a Broadway play on a Sunday. World-class restaurants, wineries, recreation. You know we could go on and on.

This place is a gift — yet the politicians and government hacks of the past have managed to bake a layer cake of mismanagement, redundancy, overspending, double-dipping, waste and corruption.

As journalists from the USA Today Network across New York are showing us in their current “New York Property Tax Dilemma” series, our taxing system statewide is broken and damaging our chances for economic growth.

Residents are being driven away, and businesses need some really good reasons to set up shop and hire people in New York.

High taxes, particularly for schools, are causing a rush for the state borders. Those moving out are the ones who can afford to do so. A move away from the Empire State and its high costs is especially alluring to retirees who put no burden on the school system but have solid retirement savings.

If we ever needed leadership — true leadership — to guide us to solve the problems of government in New York state, we need it now.

As former Finger Lakes resident Lynn Fahlen told reporter Jeff Platsky: “I just don’t care what (Gov. Andrew) Cuomo says, people are moving out in droves. … The numbers don’t lie.” She moved to Pennsylvania, and her taxes are a fraction of what she paid in New York.

Leadership doesn’t mean appointing task forces or study groups to come up with elaborate blue-sky plans that end up on shelves somewhere with no action.

Leadership means politicians, government leaders and others setting aside political party differences and geographic interests and saying: “We will be the generation to fix this.”